Don’t Let Me Go(54)

When her mom nodded off on the couch, with her head tipped back and her mouth open, Grace slid the chair over to the door again, climbed up on to it carefully (tap shoes were not ideal for this) and unlocked the door.

Her mom did not wake up.

She clicked her way up all three flights of stairs to Mrs. Hinman’s apartment and knocked on the door.

“It’s only me, Mrs. Hinman. Grace. I just wanted to show you how nice I look in my new dress and tell you thank you for it.”

She tried to talk like she had some energy, and like she was happy, so Mrs. Hinman wouldn’t think she didn’t like the dress.

“We all thought you had to stay downstairs with your mother now,” Mrs. Hinman said through the door while she was undoing all those locks.

“Yeah,” Grace said, no longer bothering to hide her depression. “I sort of did. It was sort of like you thought. But it didn’t last very long.”





Billy



Knock. Knock. Knock. Pause. Knock.

Billy glanced into the kitchen to read the clock over his stove. Rayleen was home early. He scooted Ms. Lafferty the Cat off his lap, and she ran into the bedroom.

He opened the door, and stared out into the hall, at no one. But of course it was not no one. With the possible exception of one plywood dance floor he’d overheard, it’s quite rare for your door to be knocked upon by no one. He was just staring at the wrong level, the Rayleen level. He could see, in his peripheral vision, that someone was there. It was just someone lower. Someone closer to the floor.

He turned his gaze down to Grace’s ruined face. She was crying, her nose slightly runny, her face streaked with tears. She was wearing a blue dress, one Billy had never seen before. In fact, he had never seen her in a dress of any kind. And this one was brand-new, and fit her perfectly.

He reached down and picked her up, and she wrapped her arms and legs around him and cried on his shoulder. Rather sloppily, but he really didn’t mind. The warmth of her in his arms, and the impact of her emotion, made his knees feel runny and weak, so he took her to the couch, where they sat down as one.

She did not let go.

Her tears made Billy feel as if he might cry as well, even though he was not yet specifically sure what they were crying about.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t let you know where I was,” she said in a blubbery voice.

“Well. You did. Sort of. You did that signal-knock on my floor.”

“But that was so long later. You must’ve been going crazy.”

“I felt better after you knocked.”

“Did you bite all your nails away?”

“I didn’t really have much of any to begin with.”

“Does that mean yes?”

“Pretty much.”

“You know I would’ve let you know where I was. If I could. Right?”

“I never once doubted it. Where’s your mom now?”

“Three guesses.”

“Oh.”

They stayed that way for a moment or two longer. Billy had passed the point of too much human contact, and felt the need to withdraw. But he didn’t withdraw. He just sat still with the feeling.

Suddenly a shriek pieced his eardrum on the Grace side.

“My kitty! My kitty! My kitty!”

Grace launched off his lap, hurting his thigh and leaving one ear literally ringing.

Ms. Lafferty the Cat had strolled into the room, and the cat was headed toward Grace, and Grace was headed toward the cat. But something was wrong, Billy noted. With Grace. Physically wrong. She wasn’t walking correctly. She was favoring her right hip or leg. She was limping.

“Grace. What happened?”

“Nothing happened. I’m just saying hello to my cat.”

“You’re limping.”

“Oh. That. That’s nothing.”

“Did you have an accident?”

“Sort of. Hello, Mr. Lafferty the Cat. I missed you. Did you tell Billy thanks for taking such good care of you?”

“What kind of accident? What happened?”

“Oh, it really wasn’t anything. Well, I mean, it wasn’t much. My mom and I just had this big fight.”

To his surprise, Billy found himself standing on his feet, with no memory of having risen from the couch.

“Your mother hurt you?”

“Well, yeah, sort of, but I don’t think she…”

But Billy was out the door and down the hall before he could hear the end of the sentence. He trotted down the basement stairs and pounded on that awful woman’s door.

Pounded!

As he did, a place in his gut began to tremble, the way it would if someone else had been angry, or creating a disturbance. But this wasn’t someone else. This was Billy. It never had been before, not once in his life that he could recall, but now it was, and he was unable to stop the process. It felt as if he were being frightened by the angry behavior of someone else entirely.

“Mrs. Ferguson!” he screamed. Screamed. He felt the strain in his throat from raising his voice so sharply. “Mrs. Ferguson! I need you to come to the door! Now! I know you’re not really awake but, frankly, I don’t care! I wish to have a talk with you! Right now!”

He paused, still and trembling. For quite a long moment. He pressed his fingertips to the wood of her door to steady himself.